What is adb in android phone

How to Install ADB on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Several features of the Android platform can be accessed only through paths and methods that are hidden away from the average user. These have generally been done with the help of some command line Android Debug Bridge (ADB) commands, a tool that Google offers for developers to debug various parts of their applications or the system, but which we can use for all kinds of neat and hidden tricks. A prerequisite to these tricks is installing ADB on your computer. So, in this guide, we will show you how to install ADB on Windows, macOS, and Linux in quick and easy-to-follow steps.

Table of Contents:

What is Android Debug Bridge (ADB)?

The internal structure of the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is based on the classic client-server architecture. There are three components that make up the entire process.

1. The client, i.e. the PC or Mac you have connected to your Android device. We are sending commands to our device from this coomputer through the USB cable (and wirelessly as well in some cases).
2. A daemon (adbd), which runs commands on a device. The daemon runs as a background process on each device.
3. A server, which manages communication between the client and the daemon. The server runs as a background process on the PC/Mac.

How does ADB Work?

Because there are three pieces that makeup ADB (the Client, Daemon, and the Server), this requires certain pieces to be up and running in the first place. So if you have freshly booted the computer (and you don’t have it setup to start the daemon on boot), then you will need it to be running before any communication can be sent to the target Android device. You’ll see this the following message in the command prompt or terminal, as it will check to make sure the daemon is running.

If the daemon isn’t running, then it will start the process and tell you which local TCP port it has been started on. Once that ADB service has been started, it will continue to listen to that specific port for commands that have been sent by the ADB client. It will then set up connections to all running devices which are attached to the computer (including emulators). This is the moment where you’ll receive the authorization request on the Android device if the computer hasn’t been authorized in the past.

How to Setup ADB

Note: Setting up ADB on the computer is just half the equation since you’ll also need to do some things on the smartphone or tablet to accept the ADB commands.

Phone Setup

1. Launch the Settings application on your phone.
2. Tap the About Phone option generally near the bottom of the list.
3. Then tap the Build Number option 7 times to enable Developer Mode. You will see a toast message when it is done.
4. Now go back to the main Settings screen and you should see a new Developer Options menu you can access.
5. Go in there and enable the USB Debugging mode option.
   
6. You are partially done with the phone setup process. Next up, you will need to scroll below and follow the rest of the instructions for your particular operating system.

Follow along for the operating system on your computer.

How to setup ADB on Microsoft Windows

1. Download the Android SDK Platform Tools ZIP file for Windows.
2. Extract the contents of this ZIP file into an easily accessible folder (such as C:\platform-tools)
3. Open Windows explorer and browse to where you extracted the contents of this ZIP file
4. Then open up a Command Prompt from the same directory as this ADB binary. This can be done by holding Shift and Right-clicking within the folder then click the “Open command window here” option. (Some Windows 10 users may see “PowerShell” instead of “command window”.)
5. Connect your smartphone or tablet to your computer with a USB cable. Change the USB mode to “file transfer (MTP)” mode. Some OEMs may or may not require this, but it’s best to just leave it in this mode for general compatibility.
6. In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command to launch the ADB daemon:В adb devices
7. On your phone’s screen, you should see a prompt to allow or deny USB Debugging access. Naturally, you will want to grant USB Debugging access when prompted (and tap the always allow check box if you never want to see that prompt again).
8. Finally, re-enter the command from step #6. If everything was successful, you should now see your device’s serial number in the command prompt (or the PowerShell window).

Yay! You can now run any ADB command on your device! Now go forth and start modding your phone by following our extensive list of tutorials!

How to setup ADB on macOS

1. Download the Android SDK Platform Tools ZIP file for macOS.
2. Extract the ZIP to an easily-accessible location (like the Desktop for example).
3. Open Terminal.
4. To browse to the folder you extracted ADB into, enter the following command:В cd /path/to/extracted/folder/
5. For example, on my Mac it was this: cd /Users/Doug/Desktop/platform-tools/
6. Connect your device to your Mac with a compatible USB cable. Change the USB connection mode to “file transfer (MTP)” mode. This is not always required for every device, but it’s best to just leave it in this mode so you don’t run into any issues.
7. Once the Terminal is in the same folder your ADB tools are in, you can execute theВ following command to launch the ADB daemon:В ./adb devices
8. On your device, you’ll see an “Allow USB debugging” prompt. Allow the connection.
9. Finally, re-enter the command from step #7. If everything was successful, you should now see your device’s serial number in macOS’s Terminal window.

Congratulations! You can now run any ADB command on your device!В Now go forth and start modding your phone by following our extensive list of tutorials!

While the guide above will certainly work, some seasoned macOS users should be aware that there can be an easier way to install ADB on their Macs using an unofficial package manager such as Homebrew or MacPorts.

How to setup ADB on Linux

1. Download the Android SDK Platform Tools ZIP file for Linux.
2. Extract the ZIP to an easily-accessible location (like the Desktop for example).
3. Open a Terminal window.
4. Enter the following command:В cd /path/to/extracted/folder/
5. This will change the directory to where you extracted the ADB files.
6. So for example: cd /Users/Doug/Desktop/platform-tools/
7. Connect your device to your Linux machine with your USB cable. Change the connection mode to “file transfer (MTP)” mode. This is not always necessary for every device, but it’s recommended so you don’t run into any issues.
8. Once the Terminal is in the same folder your ADB tools are in, you can execute theВ following command to launch the ADB daemon:В ./adb devices
9. Back on your smartphone or tablet device, you’ll see a prompt asking you to allow USB debugging. Go ahead and grant it.
10. Finally, re-enter the command from step #8. If everything was successful, you should now see your device’s serial number in the Terminal window output.

Congrats! You can now run any ADB command on your device!В Now go forth and start modding your phone by following our extensive list of tutorials!

Some Linux users should be aware that there can be an easier way to install ADB on their computer. The guide above will certainly work for you, but those own a Debian or Fedora/SUSE-based distro of Linux can skip steps 1 and 2 of the guide above and use one of the following commands:

• Debian-based Linux users can type the following command to install ADB:
• Fedora/SUSE-based Linux users can type the following command to install ADB:

However, it is always better to opt for the latest binary from the Android SDK Platform Tools release, since the distro-specific packages often contain outdated builds.

Just to cover all of our bases here, users may need to put a ./ in front of the ADB commands we list in future tutorials, especially when they are using the extracted binaries directly from the Platform Tools ZIP. This is something that is likely known by any *nix user (or Windows user running PowerShell) already, but again, we want as many people as possible to understand how to do these tweaks for Android no matter how much of your operating system you know.

Examples of ADB Commands

To check if you have successfully installed ADB, connect your device to your PC/Mac with your USB cable, and run the adb devices command as described above. It should display your device listed in the Command Prompt/PowerShell/Terminal window. If you get a different output, we recommend starting over with the steps.

As mentioned above, you can use ADB to do all sorts of things on an Android device. Some of these commands are built directly into the ADB binary and should work on all devices. You can also open up what is referred to as an ADB Shell and this will let you run commands directly on the device. The commands which are run directly on the device can vary from device to device (since OEMs can remove access to certain ones, and also modify adb behavior) and can vary from one version of Android to the next as well.

Below, you’ll find a list of example commands which you can do on your device:

• Print a list of connected devices: adb devices
• Kill the ADB server: adb kill-server
• Install an application: adb install

Set up port forwarding: adb forward tcp:6100 tcp:7100

Copy a file/directory from the device: adb pull

Copy a file/directory to the device: adb push

Initiate an ADB shell: adb shell

Bonus

For those who want to take this a step further, you can follow this new tutorial we put together that will walk you through how to set up ADB so that you can use the command from any directory on a Windows or Linux desktop.

What else can I do with ADB?

Below is a list of XDA tutorials for various devices that detail many applications of ADB commands in order to modify hidden settings, customize OEM features or user interfaces, and much more!

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Android Debug Bridge Fundamentals

Jan 2, 2020 · 7 min read

ADB or Android Debug Bridge is a term that you’ve come across quite often. Every time you connect your device to your computer via cable, or if you browse around the ‘Developer Options,’ you will come across the term Android Debug Bridge or ADB for short, but what does it mean? And what is its purpose? It is a versatile tool that helps your Android device function as it is, so let us tell you more about ADB.

The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is used to:-

• keep track of all Android devices and emulators instances connected to or running on a given host developer machine.
• implement various control commands (e.g. “adb shell”, “adb pull”, etc.) for the benefit of clients (command-line users, or helper programs like DDMS). These commands are called ‘services’ in ADB.

What Is adb?

Android Debug B ridge (adb) is a versatile command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. The adb command facilitates a variety of device actions, such as installing and debugging apps, and it provides access to a Unix shell that you can use to run a variety of commands on a device

This is the literal meaning of ADB. Though at first glance it doesn’t appear to tell you anything, it actually does. It’s a “bridge” for developers to work out bugs in their Android applications. This is done by connecting a device that runs the software through a PC and feeding its terminal commands. ADB lets you modify your device (or device’s software) via a PC command line.

So in short “Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is a versatile tool to let you manage the state of an emulator instance or Android-powered device.”

How adb Works?

When you start an adb client, the client first checks whether there is an adb server process already running. If there isn’t, it starts the server process. When the server starts, it binds to local TCP port 5037 and listens for commands sent from adb clients — all adb clients use port 5037 to communicate with the adb server.

The server then sets up connections to all running devices. It locates emulators by scanning odd-numbered ports in the range 5555 to 5585, the range used by the first 16 emulators. Where the server finds an adb daemon (adbd), it sets up a connection to that port. Note that each emulator uses a pair of sequential ports — an even-numbered port for console connections and an odd-numbered port for adb connections. For example:

Emulator 1, console: 5554
Emulator 1, adb: 5555
Emulator 2, console: 5556
Emulator 2, adb: 5557
and so on…

As shown, the emulator connected to adb on port 5555 is the same as the emulator whose console listens on port 5554.

Once the server has set up connections to all devices, you can use adb commands to access those devices. Because the server manages connections to devices and handles commands from multiple adb clients, you can control any device from any client (or from a script).

adb Components

adb is an application that consists of four major components:

• A client that sends commands to the connected Android device. This is the shell command adb that runs on your dev machine.
• A daemon (adbd) that runs as a background process on a device and handles the execution of received commands.
• A server that handles communication between the client and the daemon. The server runs as a background process on your dev machine and is started the first time you use the adb command.
• A service that runs in the background.

As a whole, everything works through the following components:

1. The ADB server:- This is a background process that runs on the host machine. Its purpose is to sense the USB ports to know when devices are attached/removed, as well as when emulator instances start/stop. It thus maintains a list of “connected devices” and assigns a ‘state’ to each one of them: OFFLINE, BOOTLOADER, RECOVERY or ONLINE (more on this below). The ADB server is really one giant multiplexing loop whose purpose is to orchestrate the exchange of data (packets, really) between clients, services and devices.
2. The ADB daemon (adbd):- The ‘adbd’ program runs as a background process within an Android device or emulated system. Its purpose is to connect to the ADB server (through USB for devices, through TCP for emulators) and provide a few services for clients that run on the host. The ADB server considers that a device is ONLINE when it has successfully connected to the adbd program within it. Otherwise, the device is OFFLINE, meaning that the ADB server detected a new device/emulator, but could not connect to the adbd daemon. The BOOTLOADER and RECOVERY states correspond to alternate states of devices when they are in the bootloader or recovery mode.
3. The ADB command-line client:- The ‘adb’ command-line program is used to run adb commands from a shell or a script. It first tries to locate the ADB server on the host machine, and will start one automatically if none is found. Then, the client sends its service requests to the ADB server. Currently, a single ‘adb’ binary is used for both the server and client. this makes distribution and starting the server easier.
4. Services:- There are essentially two kinds of services that a client can talk to.

1) Host Services: These services run within the ADB Server and thus do not need to communicate with a device at all. A typical example is “adb devices” which is used to return the list of currently known devices and their states. They are a few other services though.

2)Local Services: These services either run within the adbd daemon, or are started by it on the device. The ADB server is used to multiplex streams between the client and the service running in adbd. In this case its role is to initiate the connection, then of being a pass-through for the data.

adb Protocols

These components communicate via TCP/IP protocol. When you invoke the adb command, the client first checks to see if the adb server is already running. If not, the server is started. After starting, the server sets up connections to adbd daemons on all connected devices. Once the connection is started, you can use adb commands to control these devices.

adb uses two major protocols:

1. Client Server protocol: This details the protocol used between ADB clients and the ADB server itself. The ADB server listens on TCP:localhost:5037.

A client sends a request using the following format:

1. A 4-byte hexadecimal string giving the length of the payload
2. Followed by the payload itself.

For example, to query the ADB server for its internal version number, the client will do the following:

1. Connect to tcp:localhost:5037
2. 2. Send the string “000Chost:version” to the corresponding socket

The ‘host:’ prefix is used to indicate that the request is addressed to the server itself (we will talk about other kinds of requests later). The content length is encoded in ASCII for easier debugging.

The server should answer a request with one of the following:

1. For success, the 4-byte “OKAY” string.
2. For failure, the 4-byte “FAIL” string, followed by a 4-byte hex length, followed by a string giving the reason for failure.

Note that the connection is still alive after an OKAY, which allows the client to make other requests. But in certain cases, an OKAY will even change the state of the connection.

For example, the case of the ‘host:transport: ’ request, where ‘ ’ is used to identify a given device/emulator; after the “OKAY” answer, all further requests made by the client will go directly to the corresponding adbd daemon.

The file SERVICES.TXT lists all services currently implemented by ADB.

2. Transports: An ADB transport model a connection between the ADB server and one device or emulator. There are currently two kinds of transports:

— USB transports, for physical devices through USB

— Local transports, for emulators running on the host, connected to the server through TCP

In theory, it should be possible to write a local transport that proxies a connection between an ADB server and a device/emulator connected to/ running on another machine. This hasn’t been done yet though.

Each transport can carry one or more multiplexed streams between clients and the device/emulator they point to. The ADB server must handle unexpected transport disconnections (e.g. when a device is physically unplugged) properly.

adb Installation

adb is included in the Android SDK Platform-Tools package, which you can download with the SDK Manager. You can find it in android_sdk_directory/platform-tools/ after installation.

Note: If you don’t need/want the entire Android SDK, you can also use the standalone SDK Platform Tools package to install adb.

Enable adb Debugging

To use ADB with your Android device, you must enable a feature called USB debugging. Open your phone’s app drawer, tap the Settings icon, and select “About Phone”. Scroll all the way down and tap the “Build Number” item seven times. You should get a message saying you are now a developer.

Head back to the main Settings page, and you should see a new option near the bottom called “Developer Options”. Open that, and enable “USB Debugging”.

Later on, when you connect your phone to your computer, you’ll see a popup entitled “Allow USB Debugging?” on your phone. Check the “Always allow from this computer” box and tap OK.

In this article, I have mentioned about adb fundamentals. But there are lot more about the adb. I will write some more articles on adb so to know about that please keep following.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to ADB. If you have any comments or questions, please join the forum discussion below!

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